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It's golden hour. Bright, sunny, blinding golden hour.
And there's a figure, and it's running straight towards him.
"Hey!" the figure says, "You want lollies?"
Like the sky, the figure was also bright, sunny, and blinding. "Do I know you...?" Techno says hastily.
"I don't think so," the figure says. "Anyways, want some?"
Based on what he's learned in grade school, candies offered by strangers are probably laced with drugs. “I mean, not that I care, but it's quite a pity that drug cartels in this area have stooped so low that they needed to recruit a child to sell their stuff, y'know what I mean?" the pinkette chuckles.
"No! They're not drugged. I'm like sixty percent sure they're not," the sunny figure defends.
"Sixty percent sure?" Techno blinks.
"I dunno, they're quite addictive," he shrugs. "Just have one, you look like you need it.” A lolly is shoved into his hands, and the child (With a question mark. He seems like a kid, but it could be a trick of the light. It's bright. It's too bright.) runs off into one of the dark alleyways.
"Wait!" Techno rushes after him, one eye looking at the lolly to make sure it doesn't slip out of his grip, and another scanning the road before him. He's in the sketchy part of town. This place is packed with robbers and kidnappers. Anything could happen to that kid.
He stops midway, and hears rattling coming from around the corner. "Are you there?" Techno calls out.
He slowly turns around the block, only to be met by a stinging sensation somewhere around his stomach.
So he just got stabbed.
Fuck.
That's great. Awesome. Good time. Great day.
And the world goes dark.
It's golden hour. Bright, sunny, blinding golden hour.
And there's a figure, and it's running straight towards him.
"Hey!" the figure says, "You want lollies?"
Wait. Why does that sentence sound so familiar? Why does this setting seem so familiar? Why does the boy in front of him look so familiar?
He staggers back.
"Do I...know you?" Techno asks.
He gets hit by a horrible amount of deja vu, as if he's said those exact same words before, to the exact same person. That's strange. Must be the sleep deprivation.
"Of course, you do," the figure laughs, although his eyes remain blank.
“Where from?" Techno questions, puzzled yet hoping to get some sort of answer from the stranger.
"Ugh! You're so fake! How could you forget? Are you on drugs or something?"
And then it hit him.
Techno's eyes go wide as he frantically feels his stomach for any signs of bleeding.
What? Hadn't he just been stabbed?
"You definitely need that lolly, my guy," the figure says as he shoves the lolly into the older's mouth.
Techno tilts his head, and slowly removing the candy from his mouth he asks, "What's your name?"
"Oh, it's Tommy."
"Alright, Tommy. I know this may sound a bit anomalous..but is there a small chance, a very slight possibility that we are uh- that we are in a dream right now?" the pinkette says, gulping.
He had hoped for a ‘no, idiot’.
But to no avail..
He doesn't get a response.
The look on Tommy's face changes from a cheeky smile to a deadpan expression.
Then something happens, the whole world starts glowing, and it's as if the sun has hit the Earth. If this is the end of the world, then that's such a shame, but so be it.
Techno can't open his eyes.
He can't move. The damnatory, immense light has blinded him, and the darkness greets him. The walls start to close in, as if he's trapped inside his brain. It is as if the root of his existence is his soul, and he's trapped in a body being controlled by someone else.
Techno starts falling like his legs have never existed.
He drifts away, swimming within the outlines of a void of nothingness.
So he floats.
And he floats.
And he floats.
It's golden hour. Bright, sunny, blinding golden hour.
And there's a figure, and it's running straight towards hi-
Fuck no. Why is he here again?
This is something Techno has only ever seen in sci-fi movies, and read in the pages of childhood fictional fantasies. He doesn't want to deal with a never-ending, concurring event right now.
"Tommy!" he yells at the figure. "Stay right there. I'll come to you, okay?"
The figure stops in his tracks, and gives a little nod.
"I want a lolly," Techno says.
"Wow, that's fast. I was about to offer you some," the blond says.
Techno takes the lolly without hesitation, practically tearing the plastic covering apart with his hands as Tommy watches in awe.
"Listen, do you remember where you got these?" he gestures at the basket full of lollies.
Tommy gazes at him, thinking harder than a troubled student. It's as if he himself doesn't know where the lollies came from.
"I- no," he responds, blinking in confusion.
Techno sighs. "Look, if you're smart enough, you'll know what I'm trying to say. Do you remember anything from before this very moment? From before you came up to me?"
“Uhm.."
"Keep your answer to yourself, alright? I think you get the point."
Tommy nods his head, following Techno as turns around a corner, eyes seemingly searching for something.
"I know there's a way out, but I just can't remembe-"
There's an odd gush of wind the surrounds the path. Dust and leaves are whirled into the air like a small tornado, relegating their view to only smoke and ash.
The next time Techno opens his eyes, he's on the ground, and Tommy's nowhere to be seen.
Shit. Fear creeps in, as well as the realisation that he might not get out of this loop.
It's too much, it's all too much. He needs to reset the loop.
He needs answers. He needs to get the hell out.
Techno rises from the ground, stumbling as the walls start caving in. Metaphorically? Nah.
They literally start caving in.
He braces himself, hands on his head as his eyes stay closed.
It's golden hour. Bright, sunny, blinding golde-
Tommy.
Techno desperately searches the street for the head of a blond boy. It is barren, like a rural dirt road or a ghost town.
And sitting on the concrete flooring is a wooden basket full of lollies.
He pries one out of the bunch.
And it dissolves.
Okay.
That isn't weird at all!
This situation is just another normal in Technoblade's life!
He is so used to this.
Techno scoffs and drops the lolly, slamming it onto the ground.
It creates an evident crack in the middle of the road, like the small candy on a stick was a hammer wielded by a carpenter.
Finally, he’s getting somewhere. It’s been fun and all incapacitated repeatedly in this liminal village, but he just wants to go home, alright?
He really misses, you know, the world not eating him alive.
Techno propels another lolly, this time at the sky. It bounces back after creating a crack in the horizon, like shattered, stained cathedral glass. He launches another one.
And it breaks like the spare nanosecond tucked in between daydream and awakening.
The golden hour dissipates into a plethora of midnight skies and caliginous moons and sullied meteors.
The wind blew in peace.
The moments in between consciousness were brief. They played with him as if he were a wind-up toy. Techno saunters, moving only forwards in this obscure land. It was like his feet were touching and walking the delineation of a total solar eclipse.
It’s confusing. This place is an arid desert. It’s like he is an immortal soul, trudging along the lifeless constellations of the galaxy after the day of reckoning.
It’s bone-chilling. The climate isn’t freezing cold, nor is it tremendously hot. Doomsday had come so quickly.
So devoid.
Such a catatonic lullaby.
Is it dawn?
Is it dusk?
..What time is it?
He wakes up.
It’s morning. The light peeking through his blinds tells him so. It’s not golden hour. It had never been golden hour.
“Wake up, dickhead!” someone barges into the room. It’s Tommy, his little brother, and he has an irritated look on his face. “Oh, you look like shit.”
“Tommy..?” Techno asks, voice cracking. “What did you dream of last night?”
“Huh?” the younger makes a confused noise before blinking at the wall to ponder on the question. “I don’t really remember.”
“Okay,” Techno mumbles with an exhausted sigh. He’s tired even though he’s slept way longer than what is normal. “That’s alright.”
Tommy shoots him a worried look before going back to his jovial demeanor. “Come on, they handed out goodie bags at my school’s festival gathering. I peeked inside, and the contents were..Mmm,” he looks at the ceiling, eyes rolling back as if the bag provided him with the winning lottery ticket. “There’s chocolate, and mints. I think I also saw a couple of lollies in there.”
Techno stiffens before chuckling bitterly. ”Never mention lollies around me again.”
And it’s just morning. Blue skies. Clement. Cloudless.
The aureate sunbeams began creeping in.